In the Line of War
by Kavi Darkwolf
Summary: Short Summary: The YYH crew are all heading back to Demon World for a full scale war with an enemy that you would not expect. Full summary inside. Rated T for intense violence, gory scenes, and minor language. If you read, please give me a review.


**Summary**

_Just six months after the tournament for the rulership over Demon World has ended, Yusuke Urameshi is called back to Demon World by a threat made to him by Shura, who has already grown swiftly into a teenager. Kuwobara is about to finally get a stronger taste of what Demon World is really like. A young tree spirit girl is thrown in with the Urameshi crew as war begins to break out across Demon World, but she has dual identities; will she be able to protect her second identity? Kurama seeks to capture a famous thief that has stolen one of Demon World's greatest treasures, and this treasure might even be the deciding factor for who will become the new Demon World king. Will Demon World remain in order or will it be thrown into utter chaos?_

**Notes: **_Okay, first of all, if you are going to read this fic, you need an extensive knowledge of the Yu Yu Hakusho television series. Also, if you have never seen all the television series, there will be severe spoilers about the end throughout this fic. The fic is based on the television series, so if there are things in the manga that were left out of the television series that I do not include in this story, I am sorry._

_There are things about this story that some of you hardcore fans may not like. I am not talking about yaoiness or anything like that and I am sticking to the original storyline of the anime, but there will be some minor new things added to it._

_Also, this is going to be a long story. I doubt it will get into the 100 chapters range, but it is not going to be a short-story, either._

_I do not own any of the Yu Yu Hakusho characters or the Yu Yu Hakusho world. All additional characters are solely mine._

_Finally, the main character's name is Twyla. It is not pronounced _"Twee-lah_". The "y" is pronounced like a long "I" as in "_like_"._

**Return to Demon World**

It was early spring in the south of Demon World. The wind blew wildly from the west, ripping across the trees of a forest growing near Lumuhu, the capital city of the upper levels of Demon World where its ruler resided. From the north, low grumbles of thunder could be heard from the first thunder storm of the season slowly crawling its way towards Lumuhu with this particular part of the forest in its path.

Through the middle of the forest, a dirt road that was little more than a path ran from Lumuhu to the Tunnel, an immense portal that opened out high in the sky. Through this portal, apparitions could pass from the Demon World dimension into the Human World dimension. Because it was so high in the sky, though, any demon that wanted to pass through had to pay the Makai ruler a large sum of Makaian currency to use the elevator leading up to it. From Lumuhu to the Tunnel was about two days' journey by foot, but not many apparitions were interested in going to the Human World since it had been decreed by King Enki that no human could be bothered by an apparition, so the path was nearly always deserted.

In an area of the forest around halfway down the road between Lumuhu and the Tunnel, everything had abruptly become unnaturally quiet, as if the forest were holding its breath. Even the wind had slowed its wild dancing a little, as though it were waiting to see why the forest had grown silent. No small animal crept through the undergrowth and no flying creature moved from its perch in the trees. Not a sound could be heard.

In one of the tallest trees of the forest, which stood right on the edge of the path, something moved. A girl, a Demon World native that looked like a human in her mid-teens with dark green eyes and long, dark red hair, had just sat up on the bough that she had previously been sleeping on. She sat for a moment, visually searching the area around her for any immediate danger. The girl's keen gaze missed nothing. In one sweeping glance of her surroundings, the girl noted a Ningenkan squirrel sitting in a branch above her head, a set of tracks on the ground below her that had been left from some Makaian animal when it had passed her tree wilst she slept, even the position of the sun, which was at about three o'clock in the afternoon. Finding no danger, the girl stood up on the branch and listened carefully to the forest around her in an effort to discover what had caused the strange silence.

The silence was what had woken this girl. She had been traveling towards Lumuhu for the past day and a half and, because she was a very careful person, she had been traveling by night and sleeping in trees during the day to keep herself hidden from the highwaymen and groups of thugs that roamed across Demon World. The girl had grown up in the forest and was used to its ways, which included many different woodland sounds, the most important of which, to her, being that of the trees moving. The sound of the trees blowing in the wind had always been with her, had been the messages that she received from nature and from her people, for the trees _were _her people. The movements of their leaves were words to her and they had always been in a state of speaking, either to her or to each other. Their sudden lack of sound was a warning for her, and it was this message that had startled her from her sleep.

The girl's eyes narrowed as her mind worked quickly. Was she just imagining that there was danger? The girl discarded this thought swiftly, for she had never read a message as danger and then been wrong about it before. Being overly cautious had saved her life many times. No, she was not being paranoid. Something had to be wrong for the trees to have halted their movement, and it had to involve her in some way for them to have sent their warning as a message that only she would understand, that message being their silence. The back of the girl's neck began to prickle. What was going on?

Thunder rumbled as lightning cracked through the oncoming storm clouds, yet still not a thing moved. As a precaution, the girl reached down and picked up a worn backpack from the branch she had been sleeping on and slipped it onto her shoulders. Everything that she owned was in this backpack and she was not about to leave it behind or waste time putting it on if she suddenly had to move quickly. She briefly considered putting on the boots packed inside the backpack in case she had to move to the ground, but decided that if an enemy were nearby, she would do best to keep in the tree branches where she was most skilled at moving about, so she would need to be barefooted to be able to easier cling to the trees.

There was a slight stir in the tree that she stood in. _"Sraa sha looo," _whispered the leaves as they rustled against each other. "Twyla," was what this meant when translated.

The girl, Twyla, could understand what the tree was saying because she was a tree spirit, which is the spirit of a tree that has left its home tree to roam. Tree spirits could take on many shapes when they were away from their trees, but the shape that was most natural for them to take was that of the general look of a human, mostly because many of the trees were grown from seeds that had originally drifted into Demon World from the Human World. They could also stay away from their trees for as long as they wanted until their home tree died.

"_Sreee ssshoo shraaa. Looo hhraaah shher," _the tree continued. Translated, this meant, "_There is something approaching. Danger, I think, but I do not yet know for sure what it is. There is something wrong with the air…._"

Twyla stood still, feeling the air around her. After only a few moments, she had to say that she agreed. There was something strange afoot. What could it be? It felt a lot bigger than just a local danger. Were the trees, the animals, and herself feeling danger from farther away?

"_Sree riiish shhhaaaa?" _Twyla asked the tree. She was only able to make the sounds with her mouth, though, so the words were not as beautiful as they were when spoken by a tree's leaves. When translated, what she had said meant, "_Where is it coming from_?"

Before the tree could answer her, the other trees around her exploded with the sound of rustling leaves and creaking branches. Twyla started slightly at this, but quickly realized that they were only chattering excitedly about something. Twyla cocked her head to listen.

"_It is him!"_

"_He is here! He is here!"_

"_He is in the forest. He is coming this way!"_

"_We will get to see him!"_

Twyla shook her head. The trees were not making any sense to her. _"What is going on? Who is in the forest?" _she called out to the trees.

The reply was almost deafening to her as every tree spoke the name at once. _"URAMEHSI!" _

Twyla blinked in surprise at the name. Yusuke Urameshi was back in Demon World? That was strange, for when he had left around a half a year ago, there had been rumors that he did not intend to come back. Yet here he was. What was he doing here?

When Urameshi and his team had first entered the Dark Tournament as the heavily unfavored to win, the trees of Demon World had rooted for him because the trees had been watching him and knew that he might make it, and they had not been wrong in their choice of who to root for. So, first and foremost, Twyla wanted to see the legendary part human, part demon boy that her kind had cheered for in the Dark Tournament. But Twyla was also a very inquisitive creature and curiosity immediately overcame her. She wanted to know why Urameshi was here.

"_Where is he?" _Twyla asked the tree that she stood in.

The tree simply replied, _"To the west."_

Twyla nodded, then began to climb effortlessly up the tree, moving swiftly and gracefully. Once she had gone as far as she could go without the threat of the smaller branches breaking, she stepped out onto a bough and stood there, high above the rest of Demon World. The wind was strong and whipped her red hair out behind her as she faced to the west. In spite of the wind, Twyla did not hold onto a branch to keep from being blown off. Instead, she stood upright against it, having no fear of falling, for she knew that if she did fall, the trees would catch her. She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the setting sun that peeked out from behind the oncoming storm clouds and scanned the tree tops below her through narrowed lashes.

Below her, every tree in the forest swayed gracefully in the wild wind for as far as Twyla could see, as if they were dancing. By the sound of the rustling leaves, most of them were singing, for trees love the wind and it makes them want to sing when it blows strongly. But from somewhere near, Twyla could also faintly hear some of the trees chattering excitedly. Twyla smiled. That was where Urameshi would be.

Twyla turned and descended the tree trunk until she was once again level with the rest of the trees, then took off like lightning to the west, racing alongside of the path through the trees in the direction of the sound of the chattering trees. She moved with the ease and silence of a bird flying through the air as she ducked and weaved through the twigs, hopping from branch to branch, from tree to tree, with not a leaf stirring at her passing. Every muscle in her body worked as she leapt through the air from one bough to the next, or swung outward on a branch by just the tips of her fingers from one tree, over empty space, and into the fork of another tree. Sometimes, she would climb high into the trees, springing up and up and up, then just jump into empty air and let herself freefall through the wind, as if she were flying through the setting sun light. Then she would catch herself on a strong limb and swing back into the branches of her trees to travel onward.

Twyla found that the path made a random loop to the north, thereby no longer following the direction that she intended to take, so she had to leave it behind and cut through a thicker part of the forest. As she sped through the trees, Twyla used her senses to feel all about her for danger. Her green eyes cut back and forth, searching for any sign of unusual movement. She listened intently to the behavior of the forest around her, the sounds of the trees, the animals, the wind. The wind brought smells from upwind of her, letting her know if there was danger in that direction. She felt the trees' warm bark under her hands and bare feet, felt the hot wind on her skin, felt the air around her for any nearby objects such as twigs and leaves to avoid touching. Growing up in the wild had forced Twyla to develop this action of feeling all about her as a habit, so she no longer consciously knew that she was even doing it.

But as Twyla drew closer to the trees that chattered and laughed over the sight of Urameshi, she began to be infected by their gayety and allowed her mind to wander just a little bit. She was going to get a close up look at a legend!

Yusuke Urameshi was a phenomenal fighter and had trained under Genkai, another human who was legendary in Demon World for being skilled in battling demons. Under the old human woman's training, Urameshi had quickly grown in strength, overcoming all kinds of odds. His many amazing feats included killing Rando, a demon who stole the techniques of every one of his masters, then killed them; killing the Four Saint Beasts, four powerful demons who had intended to take over the Human World; winning the Dark Tournament against Toguro, a demon who had once been human and had gained strength that was off the charts after becoming a demon; and, finally, saving the Human World from a man named Shinobu Sensui who had once been the second Spirit Detective, but had stepped down in order to turn against Spirit World and attempt to destroy all of humanity. Urameshi had done all of these things as the third Spirit Detective of the Human World and had been the primary enemy of all Demons, for each Spirit Detective that Koenma Daioh had appointed in the past had immediately become the main enemy of all Makaians.

But then, an amazing thing had happened. It had come to light that Yusuke Urameshi was part Mazouken, which was a demon that could transfer its DNA to one of its very distant descendents. As soon as Spirit World officials had gotten wind that Urameshi was part demon, they had fired him as Spirit Detective and had tried to kill him, but he had been so powerful by then that he had easily evaded and basically ignored them, making them look foolish. Everyone in Demon World had gotten a big kick out of this, but that was not what was important to them. What was important to them was that Urameshi was actually one of them! He was even the descendent of another extremely powerful demon, King Raizen, who had been alive at the time, but had then soon passed away.

Twyla could hardly contain herself in her desire to see this legend, Yusuke Urameshi. Excitement coursed through her, pounding through her brain like the blood pumping through her body.

Twyla was shaken from her thoughts when the trees around her began to whip and lash their branches about in a frenzy. She came to a sudden stop and crouched down on a slim branch, every one of her muscles tensed as she listened, trying to catch the trees' message as they shouted over each other to make themselves heard.

Finally, Twyla was able to catch one of the trees' messages. _"Twyla! Lookout!"_

Just as Twyla heard this, she saw movement out of the corner of her left eye. She automatically went into action and threw herself to her right just in time to avoid a slash from a set of incredibly sharp claws. As she tried to leap away, Twyla lost her footing on the whippy branch and crashed ungracefully onto a lower branch, her weight threatening to carry her over the edge. She quickly steadied herself, then looked up into the leaves and branches above her to see a demon standing on the branch she had previously occupied, looking down at her.

The demon was pretty small, about Twyla's shoulder level. It had grey fur, flat, yellow eyes and looked a lot like a Ningenkaian rat. The differences it had from a rat, though, were that it had razor sharp fangs protruding down over its bottom lip and it stood up on its hind legs.

Twyla noticed all of these things, but they were not the points that she found to be important when she sized the demon up. She focused on battle points: its size, its agility, its sharp claws which it obviously used as its weapon, and its body structure, noting thankfully that it was a solid demon. Twyla had tangled with a few wraith demons before and did not enjoy fighting them, for they were very difficult to kill. Twyla narrowed her eyes, using her spirit awareness to search out the demon's energy level. The demon had a very low energy level, barely above a lower D class. Twyla frowned: this would be way too easy and she did not like that. At least it would be quick, for she was in a hurry, afterall.

Wasting no time, Twyla began to call on her own special tree spirit energy, which was completely different from demon energy, but acted very much the same. Twyla held out her right hand, palm upward, and concentrated, reaching with her mind for the little ball of green fire nestled deep inside of her. She nudged it gently until a light green aura began to enshroud her hand, growing more intense until it was solid green.

Out of nowhere, a rose appeared in her hand, the petals still wet with shining dew drops.

This rose was not just any rose. It looked the same as other roses in that it had a thick green stem studded with thorns, a few leaves, and was half closed as though it were only just waking up. What made it special from other roses was that the velvety petals were all as black as a moonless and starless night.

There was no other rose like it in Demon World.

There was laughter from the branches above Twyla. She looked up to see the demon with its hands on its hips and its head thrown back, its mouth wide open in a guffaw. After it had had its laugh, the demon looked down at her and grinned maliciously. "You're gonna fight me with that? Gimme a break!" it said loudly in a rough voice. It broke out into chuckles again.

Twyla smiled enigmatically up at it. "This rose is no ordinary rose," she explained patiently, as if to an ignorant child. "Each thorn is razor sharp, and the petals…" she tenderly stroked the dark blossom with her forefinger, "are deadly poisonous."

With satisfaction, Twyla noted that the smile had faded from the demon's ugly face. Her words were getting to him. She guessed at what must be going through his mind. _It couldn't be too dangerous: it's just a stupid flower! But what could the poison do to me? How'll she use a plant to battle me?_ Twyla thought that it was too bad that the demon was not more powerful. It would be too easy for her to plant the seed of fear in this one. It was far more fun for Twyla to use her psyche tricks on strong demons.

The demon crouched down. It obviously was preparing to attack. "What're ye goin' t'do with a flower? Hit me on the head with it? Ye're gonna need a lot more'n _that_." As if to prove its point, the demon licked the razor sharp claws on its right hand. "I'm gonna rip ye to shreds!"

Twyla had never before engaged in the practice of shouting insults at her enemies before battling them, but she often talked to them, saying things to make them doubt themselves, playing with their minds to make them a little afraid. Sometimes it could be difficult to make it work, but she found it to be fun anyway. "You don't seem to believe that this rose can kill you," Twyla said almost pityingly. "Allow me to show you."

Twyla reached for her energy again, taking a slightly larger amount then when she had made the rose. The aura enshrouded Twyla's hand again, giving the black rose an eerie, dark green look.

"_Shaaaaroooo loooa shhhh," _Twyla whispered in her native language.

The rose quivered, trying to hold onto its original shape, then it gave in to Twyla's command and shifted completely. When the aura of green had cleared away from Twyla's hand, the rose had changed into a dagger.

The dagger was beautiful. The entire handle was green and the cross hilts were each a long, slender thorn, tapered to needle sharp points. Set in the pommel was a partly bloomed rose made of black crystal. The blade was made of rose petals wrapped together to form a double blade, razor sharp. Yet when Twyla ran her finger along the spine of the blade, it was soft and velvety.

"What the hell…?" Twyla heard the demon say softly.

Twyla only lightly touched the side of her thumb to the edge of the blade to draw blood. She smiled. "This, my friend, is what can kill you."

With a roar, the demon leapt from its branch, its teeth set for Twyla's throat. Without flinching, Twyla tossed the dagger into the air, catching it by the tip of its blade. Almost casually, she whipped the dagger forward, causing it to spin once until the point of the blade was aimed for the demon. Before the demon could blink, the dagger had buried itself up to its hilt in the middle of the demon's chest. The demon dropped from the air in mid-leap, crashing through the branches to the ground.

Twyla did flinch at this sound. Demons did not normally travel through this forest alone and if there were other demons around, the sound might attract their attention. She stood listening for a moment, but the only sound she heard was her victim's dying moan from the ground below her. After waiting a reasonable amount of time for any new enemies to show up, she began to descend the tree.

On the ground, late afternoon sunlight streamed to the forest floor in wide shafts. But where the light did not touch under the trees, it was as dark as the night. The area was characterized by several immense boulders that seemed to have just been randomly dropped there, for there were no mountains around. The ground was of soft dirt and moss, with large tussocks of grass dotted about here and there. Yellow butterflies flitted lazily through the sunshine and the shadows, their golden wings making them look like little drops of sunlight that had broken off from the shafts of light and flown away into the darkness.

There was not a sound as Twyla landed on the forest floor. She crouched on the ground for a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust to the gloom. She listened to the forest sounds for any sign of danger, but everything sounded normal. From nearby, she could smell warm blood and could feel the energy from her dagger shining out like a beacon. The energy could not be seen, but because it was Twyla's own energy that had made the dagger, she could feel it when she came near to it.

That neither the smell of blood nor the energy of her dagger was coming any closer told Twyla that the demon was not moving to attack her. In fact, it was completely still. Twyla crept to her right, her bare feet moving silently across the ground. She made certain to place her feet on tussocks of grass so as to not leave tracks for any potential enemies to find.

Presently, Twyla came to a large boulder that was half buried in the dirt. In spite of that, it was still taller than Twyla. She stopped next to it, looking up at its craggy surface. From the light of a nearby shaft of sunshine, Twyla could see a thin stream of dark red blood slowly oozing its way down the side of the boulder. Twyla touched it to reassure herself that the gloom was not tricking her eyes. Having affirmed that it really was blood, Twyla began scaling the boulder. She was not as good at rock climbing as she was at tree climbing, but the rough surface provided plenty of handholds for easy maneuvering.

Once at the top, Twyla found the battered and broken body of the lifeless demon, Twyla's dagger still buried in its heart. Twyla breathed a sigh of relief. She had been afraid that the dagger might have been lost on the way down with the demon. She would have been able to find it through sensing its energy of course, but if it had been knocked away by a branch into some more distant part of the forest, it would have taken Twyla longer to find it because she had to get close to it before she could feel its energy. It took a lot of energy to make a dagger, so once she had made one, Twyla liked to keep ahold of it, at least for a while.

Twyla bent down and withdrew the dagger from the demon's chest, then wiped the dark blade clean on its fur. She had no time to waste if she were going to get to Urameshi. She leapt off of the boulder and hit the ground running.

Twyla was very close to the sound of the chattering of the trees by this time. She raced silently through the darkness of the forest, using her natural night vision to avoid running into a tree in the gloom.

Suddenly, the sound of screams and yells and of bodies coming into contact with solid things reached Twyla's ears. The trees were no longer just chattering, but were now moving wildly, raising quite a ruckus.

"_Twyla! Hurry up, there is trouble!_" once of them called out to her.

Twyla made no reply, but she took to the branches to avoid running into any demons that might be on the ground.

Once she was higher up where it was not so dark, Twyla became slightly dazzled by the bright afternoon light. But when her vision had cleared, the first thing she noticed was that she was near the road again. It seemed that when the road had turned away to the north earlier, it had only been making a loop and had come back to its previous course. Twyla had merely cut across the corner of it through the forest to come out on this side of the loop.

The next thing Twyla noticed was Yusuke Urameshi standing in the middle of the road, his fists raised and a blue aura surrounding his body. His brown eyes were filled with battle light and there was a look of wild happiness about him. His short, jet black hair was messy and his odd, human city clothes were disheveled. Lying on the road next to him was a medium sized satchel that looked as though it had been tossed there and forgotten.

Naturally it would have been forgotten, for Urameshi was only focused on the task at hand. He was in the process of battling about ten demons at once. Urameshi was heavily outnumbered, but when Twyla used her spirit awareness to see the energy of both the demons and the human, she realized that it was the other way around. The combined energy of the demons –which were obviously lower C class or less than that individually- did not even come close to the human's energy level.

Twyla blinked in surprise. She had noticed that Urameshi's energy felt strange. It was obviously S class level, but there seemed to be more to it. Like there were two kinds of energy sharing one body. How did that work?

Lightning cracked across the sky as three demons attacked the human at once. Most of them were using their fists, teeth, and claws, but some were using metal weapons and some were even high enough in the C class to be able to use their energy as a very primitive weapon.

Urameshi fended his attackers off with ease, but some fresher demons swiftly took their places to renew the attack. Urameshi also beat these ones off, killing two in the process. His fists were a blur, dancing a terrible dance of death and pain, dealing out lethal blows left and right. Twyla was impressed at how easily he fought. He was focused only on what he was doing and he seemed to have learned to gauge just how much it would take to beat each of his enemies without wasting energy. It was obvious to Twyla that he would win.

That was when it hit Twyla. It was obvious to her that Urameshi would win, so was it not obvious to the battling demons? There were at least three in there that should have been intelligent enough to see this, so why did they keep fighting the human champion, knowing that they were going to be killed?

Twyla did not have time to figure out the answer to this question, though, for a movement to her left caught her attention. Twyla turned her head to see a dark shape sitting in the tree next to her. Twyla's eyes widened and her breath shortened, for the shape was a one that she recognized and knew for its danger.

Twyla, who feared very little, had reason to be afraid now, for the shape was a very deadly creature that was well known to her people. It was the spirit of an incredibly venomous plant called the Blekko plant found only in the very lowest levels of Demon World. Older trees remembered the days when they had been completely absent from this part of Demon World, but in the last thousand years, many of them had left their home plants and had managed to find their way into the Upper Realms.

The creature in the tree next to Twyla was an incredibly ugly specimen. It was a mud brown color splotched with bright yellow spots. It had no eyes, nose, or ears; just one gigantic mouth that stretched from one side of its head to the other, filled with black fangs that constantly dripped with yellow venom. Nobody knew how these creatures found their way around with no other senses besides taste and touch, but somehow they did it. The creature's body looked like nothing more than a large, messy, muddy weed when it was holding still, but when it moved, its body stretched out like a vine, allowing it to climb around on trees or travel along the ground like a Ningenkaian snake. Its bite was deadly and it mostly fed on other plants, but the ones that had traveled to Demon World's upper levels had managed to develop a taste for demon blood. Some of them had even come to detest the taste of plants in favor of blood, and would go for weeks without food until they managed to get to feed on a living creature.

Twyla, having grown up in the forest, had run into a few Blekkos before. The first time she had come across one feeding on a tree, she had immediately engaged it in battle. However, she had been unable to kill it through normal means like stabbing it with her dagger, so she had had to let it live so that she could escape with her own life.

After that battle, Twyla had made it her mission to find a way to kill Blekkos and had traveled throughout Western Demon World, asking trees and plants if they knew how to kill the Blekko, before she had finally found the answer. She had found out that there was a type of poisonous plant that, when mixed with the venom inside of the Blekko's mouth, would cause the plant's poison to turn on its host and kill it. Twyla had had to travel deep into the lower levels of Demon World to find this plant, but it had been well worth the effort, for she had been able to use it to keep the part of the forest that she called home free of Blekkos.

However, as courageous as Twyla had been in finding a way to kill Blekkos and getting rid of the ones in her home area, Twyla dared not move now. She knew that Blekkos were very sensitive to motion, despite their lack of three vital senses, and she definitely did not want to attract this one's attention. In fact, it was a wonder that the Blekko had not sensed her already.

That was when it hit Twyla. She had been so caught up in the fact that there was actually a Blekko, one of her people's most dangerous enemies, crouched in the tree next to her that she had failed to notice that it was behaving very strangely. It had its bulbous head turned in the direction of the battle between Urameshi and the demons, as if it were watching, even though it had no eyes. It _should_ have noticed Twyla and done something about it –like attacked her- by now. Yet, by all appearances, the Blekko did not even know that she existed.

At least, that was what it _appeared_ to be. By all logic concerning the behavior of Blekkos and by Twyla's experiences with them, this one _had _to know she was there. The only reason that Twyla could come up with for why the Blekko was uninterested in her was that it was actually ignoring her, seemingly engrossed in the battle below.

Twyla immediately saw her opportunity. She had to work quickly. Normally, if the Blekko had not known she was there, Twyla would never have dared to make sudden movements, but as it was, Twyla knew that she had no fear of that since the Blekko already knew of her presence. She also would never have stared at it as intently as she was doing then for fear that it would feel her gaze and become aware of her presence. But, again, she knew that she did not have to fear this, so she stared at it for all her worth, unwilling to take her eyes off of it for even a second in case it was intelligent and was trying to trick her into letting her guard down so that it could attack.

Twyla crouched down on the branch she occupied and slipped her backpack from her shoulders. She opened the flap and felt around inside with her hands, not daring to let her eyes drop, though it would have helped her to locate the package she sought more quickly.

The bag's interior had a wall of cloth sewn into the middle of it, creating two compartments inside. In one side, Twyla kept some extra things that she used when she needed them, though she only kept very few of these things. The other side was filled almost to the brim with packages, which were an assortment of different colors and sizes, most of them made from the leaves of different plants while others were made from leather.

The one Twyla was searching for was very small. The way she would be able to tell when she had the right package just by touching it would be by its heat, for the contents of the package had to be kept warm for them to retain their potency. Because of this, Twyla had made the package out of fire leaves, which stayed hot even after they had been plucked from their plant.

After digging all the way to the bottom of the bag, Twyla finally felt the heat of the package in her hand. She withdrew the package from the bag and held it in both of her hands for a few moments to warm them up, for if she did not hold the plant inside with warm hands, it would go cold and become useless.

The hot leaves warmed Twyla's hands quickly. Once they were heated enough, she opened the package and pulled out one crimson berry that was about the size of her thumb. Twyla closed the package and dropped it back into her bag. Next, she placed the blood red berry between her forefinger and middle finger to free up both of her hands.

With that done, Twyla began to concentrate energy into both of her hands. Her green aura engulfed them, then there was a small, brief flash of green light. Once the aura had cleared up, there was an item in each of the girl's hands. In her left hand was an arrow with a green shaft, straight and true. The flight was made from a black rose leaf, and it was tipped with an enormous black rose thorn.

In her right hand, Twyla held a beautiful longbow. It was deep green with black, gracefully curving patterns cut into it. It was tipped with black, oddly curved rose thorns with a fine specimen of bowstring, woven from three very thin yet strong vines and covered with beeswax, looped around them.

Letting her eyes drop for just a moment, Twyla stuck the berry onto the end of the arrow. However, when she looked up again, Twyla knew immediately that something was wrong. The Blekko was no longer just sitting and watching the fight, but was now moving excitedly about on its branch, its head still turned downward toward the fight, its mouth wide open and its teeth bared in a wicked grin.

Twyla looked down to see what was exciting the Blekko so much. She saw that Urameshi had brought the demon gang down to just two. However, alarm bells started ringing in Twyla's head when she noticed that these two had managed to draw Urmeshi away from the middle of the road and were steadily bringing him closer to the forest and the venomous creature sitting in the tree.

Twyla immediately put two and two together and saw what was going on. That was why the demons had continued fighting when they must have known that they were hopelessly outpowered by Urmeshi. Somehow, they had gotten the Blekko to work with them (which surprised Twyla more than anything else, because she knew that it would normally have just killed the demons on the spot if they had tried to approach it with any kind of proposition) and had known that it would be able to kill Urameshi for them if they could just get the human close enough for the creature to ambush him.

Twyla swiftly gauged the distance that the Blekko could jump and saw that Urameshi just had to take a few more steps before he would be in the creature's range. She knocked the berry tipped arrow to her bow and brought it up, drawing a bead on the Blekko's head. Could she do it in time?

No! Just as Twyla was about to let her arrow fly, the demons fighting Urmeshi drew him into the Blekko's range and dodged to get out of the way. The Blekko sensed its opening and launched itself from the branch, its vine uncoiling as it threw itself through the air.

Sweat broke out all down Twyla's back as she swiftly readjusted her aim and fired. She was afraid that she had shot at the wrong time and would miss. But her aim had been perfect and the arrow sliced through the trees' leaves like lightning to bury itself deep into the Blekko's head. The foul creature let out a piercing shriek, then dropped, crumpling like a dead weed when it hit the road right next to Urameshi.


End file.
